What is boot animation?
During the time when Android device is starting (“booting”), it displays simple animation on the screen – this is called boot animation (sometimes written together as “bootanimation”). On the background, Android is loading everything needed for the proper functioning and once everything is loaded, it will switch from boot animation to your home screen.
The boot animation is usually prepared by the manufacturer of the device and contains their logo. If you are using Android device for digital signage, it might be a good idea to replace the original boot animation with something more professional-looking. This is possible only on rooted devices, otherwise the original boot animation can’t be replaced.
Format of boot animation
At the moment when Android starts displaying the boot animation, only the most basic system functionalities are available and video decoding is not one of them. Because of this, format of boot animation has to be really simple. It is encoded as a series of PNG images, packed in ZIP file without compression, so it can be extracted into memory very quickly.
If you are interested in the exact format of boot animation, you can find the reference on https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/cmds/bootanimation/FORMAT.md.
How to set the boot animation in Slideshow
If you are using the device mainly with Slideshow app, you can change the original boot animation to Slideshow’s custom one. It consists of simple black screen with text “Loading”, animated three dots and Slideshow logo. This option is available through the web interface, menu Settings – Device settings – scroll down and click on Set bootanimation. Reboot the device afterwards and you should see the Slideshow’s boot animation after couple of seconds.
Disclaimer: Slideshow doesn’t have an option to revert the boot animation to the original one, once it is set. If you would like to use another boot animation afterwards, you will have to use 3rd part tool/app, such as Boot Animations for Superuser or BootAnimation.zip Changer Root.
